


Even When The Music's Gone

by Bofur1



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Childhood Memories, Crying, Discussion of Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Family Angst, Family Feels, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Kid Fic, Memories, Nightmares, Orphans, Past Character Death, Pre-Canon, References to Illness, Survivor Guilt, Wistful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27695557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Bofur1
Summary: Bifur tries to console Bofur after he has a nightmare about his late mother. It leads to a conversation about the nature of life, death, grief, and soldiering on despite it.
Relationships: Bifur & Bofur & Bombur (Tolkien)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Even When The Music's Gone

Over the past half-year since he’d brought his cousins into his home, Bifur had learned better than to sleep too deeply. They were so young still that they needed tending to more often than not. Thus as soon as he heard the mewls and whimpers of “Ama! Ama, come back!” Bifur was rolling out of bed to light candles before his eyes had fully opened.

He hadn’t realized at first how common their nightmares would be, but his ignorance wasn’t unexpected. He hadn’t been there to see their last days with their poor, ill mother; he could only imagine how terrifying it must have been for the little ones to see her waste away. His own imagining of it, the life fading from his dear auntie’s eyes, made Bifur’s heart and stomach turn.

“Bofur?” he ventured softly as he cracked open the door. His cousin froze at the sudden sliver of light that appeared, trembling with badly stifled sobs. “What’s wrong, lad?”

“I thought—I thought—” he hiccupped, seeming unsure how to conclude the sentence. His cheeks were flushed and swollen as he tried to scrub away tearstains. “M’sorry…S’bad of me t-to be so loud at night, isn’t it? I d-don’t mean to wake Bombur…”

Always thinking of others first, he was. “You’re in no trouble,” Bifur promised as he glanced to the mop of ginger hair half-buried under the blankets. “He’s sleeping sound. But let’s come out into the other room, eh? So we don’t chance it.”

Bofur didn’t resist as he was lifted out of bed, a little too easily for Bifur’s comfort. A Dwarfling of his age ought not to be so light; there should still be baby fat to wean, but Bofur had his mother’s leaner build by nature. (That was what Bifur tried to tell himself, at least, to dull the sting of guilt for his empty pantry.) And speaking of the boys’ mother—

It took a few minutes, several gulped breaths and hard sniffs before Bofur mustered himself. “I dreamt up Ama,” he croaked, hands wet as he curled them into Bifur’s warm nightshirt. “I thought I heard her singin’ somewhere an’ I tried to look but it was…everything was too dark an’ scary to see.”

Bifur hummed sympathetically, running calloused fingers through his cousin’s tangled mane as he paced, hoping slow steps would soothe him. “I’m sorry, _entlin_. That does sound quite a fright.”

“No, but s’all my fault. I should’ve been brave enough to keep lookin’! Grown boys, th-they don’t cry. They don’t be scared of the dark an’ leave their amads in there. Grown boys are brave for their amads, no matter what.”

If only he knew how Bifur had wept for him and Bombur, their ama and their future. If only he knew the dreads and uncertainties he faced, never sure if he was doing right by them. Every moment of every day, he grappled with the reality that he would never know the version of a Bofur and Bombur raised properly by their parents. His aunt and uncle would never hold the pride of molding their own treasures.

“Bofur,” he began as surely as he could, “I prefer to think I’m a wise, well-thinking Dwarf. Don’t you think so too? Well, then I would be the first to know if my cousins were weak or cowardly. This I’ll tell you—and your ama would be the very next to agree—that bravery doesn’t always mean wandering in the dark on your own to search for her. Sometimes it means you stop, keep safe and trust that your ama can…” _Care for herself? Protect herself? Survive?_ Oh, but Joniver hadn’t the will for that in the end. “…find her own way. She was a very wise Dwarf too.”

Until the last sentence, Bofur seemed as if he wanted to object. As it was now, he heaved a tremulous breath, rubbing his face into Bifur’s shoulder to smear away the new tears squeezing out.

Was it wrong of him, then, to have such dreams? Would his ama be disappointed with him for conjuring it up somehow? He didn’t intend to make the dream so awful. If he _wanted_ to dream of anything, it would be her warm hands and soft kisses and the way she used to call him her wren and Bombur her robin. He would dream of how she smelled when he cuddled up close, like sweets and spices and smoke.

Bifur smelled like none of those things, but it would be unfair of Bofur to expect as much. He swallowed hard.

“Do you dream about your ama too?”

Bifur’s measured steps faltered for a beat as old pain bristled. _Curls like ribbons of honey, a deep laugh, and keen, gleaming eyes. A howl and an Orc’s saber and “Run, Bifur! Run!”_

“I would, sometimes,” he admitted at length, taking note to loosen his fingers where they dug into Bofur’s hair and neck. “Not so often anymore. But that doesn’t mean I ever forget her,” he hurried to add. “Only that I prefer to think of her in the daylight more than the night.”

That much Bofur seemed to understand. “My ama was a little better by day…least ways she sort of looked it. She spent all night coughin’ an’ coughin’. Then after the sun came up, she’d run out of coughs. If she didn’t bring up a mess in her beard and she caught her voice back later, she would let us up on the bed an’ try to sing for us. Did you ever hear her sing?”

“Aye, indeed. I heard her sing to you when you were only just born. She hadn’t the strongest or deepest voice but lovely just the same. Her songs were the only thing to appease you when you set to crying for no reason at all. All babes do sometimes. You proved you have your adad’s hearty lungs. Bombur was much the same.” A blessing that was, he surmised privately. With their father’s lungs, they weren’t as likely to take the ill turn their mother had.

“Did Adad love her voice too?”

“Of course! One of the many, many reasons he loved her. Long before she was coughing, she had a gift for singing and he for dancing. Mark me, your ama is singing for joy with him now in the Halls.”

Bofur’s fingers tightened in the fabric of his nightshirt, his next words so small that Bifur almost didn’t hear him over the rasp of stone underfoot. “Is it dark when the mines fall down on you? Did Adad have to try an’ find the Halls in the dark?”

“No! No.” He had denied the thought too hastily to sound comforting, but there were no false promises to offer. Settle for vain hope. “I choose to believe that a kind soul like Bromur’s wouldn’t be kept waiting. He took a lantern down into the mines with him, besides. I’m sure it was only dark for a moment.”

Bofur sighed, a hitched, defeated thing, and when he breathed again his chin wobbled. “Maybe that’s what Ama meant to tell me in my sleep. S’why she had to go, so she could sing for him. S-So he could find his way an’ get to her.”

 _Mahal, imdirî mâ_. Feeling as though hot coals were lodged in his throat, Bifur summoned earnest strength he didn’t know he had.

“He _has_ found her. They are together, as it’s meant to be. The Halls are a blessed, happy place—no darkness, no coughs, no tears. Mahal has my parents there, safe and sound with yours. We…We may hurt for a long time while we’re apart from them; we may hurt so much that we scarcely want to go on. But we need to do them proud, Bofur. My ama and yours, they want so many good things for us while we walk this earth—and when we meet them there, we’ll have such stories to tell them! As you said yourself: grown boys are brave for their amads, always.”

For a while Bofur was uncharacteristically silent, leaving Bifur to suspect the conversation was over. Fleetingly he wondered if his little cousin had dropped back to sleep, until…

“If it’s got to be anyone, I’m glad me an’ Bombur have you, ‘til we see them again. You’re one of my good things.”

**Author's Note:**

> Entlin: duckling, sweetheart  
> Imdirî mâ: Have mercy on us


End file.
